Category: Mae Robertson


Midnight Coverfolk: Songs for the Middle of the Night

September 14th, 2008 — 12:32 am

I’ve always been nocturnal by nature, treating the darkest hours as my own private playspace. It’s in the genes: growing up in the summer vacations of my childhood, my siblings, my father and I wandered the house like ghosts until three. Until I joined the public schoolteacher’s union, I’d seen the sunrise more times at the tail end of my day than the beginning.

But teaching is an early riser’s profession. Fight as I may, after five hours of sleep and a full day in the hallways of urban adolescent chaos, I’m worn by supper, and drained by ten. I stay up as late as I can, winding down, blogging over at the collaborative. But these days, I’m lucky if I see midnight.

Which is to say: please pardon our bedraggled appearance while we remodel our author’s sleep patterns, folks. In the meanwhile, here’s some quiet songs of the witching hour, written late and tired.

153 comments » | Be Good Tanyas, Caroline Herring, Cowboy Junkies, Eliza Gilkyson, Guy Davis, James Yorkston, Madeleine Peyroux, Mae Robertson

Covered in Folk: Randy Newman (Bonnie Raitt, The Duhks, J.J. Cale, Shelby Lynne, and 9 more!)

April 30th, 2008 — 01:49 am

Though my father hasn’t missed it in decades, I haven’t been able to attend the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival since I started teaching over a decade ago — something about the way a last gasp of hunker-down-and-teach takes over public education as we approach state testing, and the long downhill slide toward the end of the school year. But every year as we hit the last weekend in April my mind begins to muse upon the great acts I saw down there the few years I made it: Los Lobos, the Indigo Girls, Taj Mahal, Blues Traveler, the Neville Brothers, a holy host of Marsalis siblings, and many, many more.

What stands out strongest after all these years is the time I saw Randy Newman play a whole set of songs about rain in a downpour one year at Jazzfest. We were muddy football fields away from the stage, umbrella-less to boot, but what I remember best is the clarity of his set, just that wry warbly scratchy voice and a barroom piano style, over a substance chock full of extremely unreliable narrators and sarcasm, with a power that I had never really heard in his music before.

The scene was terrible; the view was worse. But Newman’s music got burned into my brain. And since then, though I haven’t made it to another performance, I’ve never passed up a chance to listen to his songs, no matter who is singing them.

Randy Newman’s original performances aren’t folk, quite — though as a set of produced music that, at its best, focuses and features the simple melodies and heartfelt, story-troped acoustic output of a songwriter and his stringed instrument, much of his songs share the qualities of both traditional folkways and modern singer-songwriter folk. That so many from the folkworld and beyond have managed to take his work and make it beautiful in their own way acknowledges this ground, it is true. But that the songs speak — as all good folk should — to a nation and a people and a heart all at once is both a testament to the inherent beauty in the songs themselves, and the inherent and universal beauty in the human condition, even at its most terrible and sodden and rained-upon, of which they speak so effectively.

Today, in honor of my tenth consecutive year missing Jazzfest, we bring you a predominantly southern-tinged set of Randy Newman coversongs. Though I could not resist a song or two from the lighter and less historically-relevant side of the Newman catalog, those younger folks who only know Newman from his recent work scoring Disney soundtracks may be pleasantly surprised to find that in his younger days, Newman was a gifted songwriter, known for his ability to expose the whole range of the human experience, from the poignant to the historical accurate to the absurd, rub it raw, and somehow manage to make it touching all the same. Sometimes, I guess, it takes a little rain to make you really understand.

Today’s bonus coversongs come with little fanfare after two megaposts in three days:

  • Randy Newman covers Harry Nilsson’s Remember
  • Randy Newman “covers” Every Man A King, bringing his trademark irony to lyrics originally by Huey P. Long just by singing them straight alongside his Good Old Boys

Randy Newman will play this year’s Jazzfest on Thursday evening. Can’t make it? Check out this related post @ Star Maker Machine: The Preservation Hall Jazz Band covers Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans

885 comments » | Bonnie Raitt, Chris Smither, Covered in Folk, JJ Cale, Mae Robertson, Marc Broussard, Martin Simpson, Peter Mulvey, Randy Newman, Shelby Lynne, The Duhks, Tim O'Brien

James Taylor Covers: Sam Cooke, George Jones, Joni Mitchell, Stephen Foster, Peter Pan, The Drifters, and more!

April 27th, 2008 — 08:57 pm


A bit woozy today after yesterday’s all-day drive up the East Coast from North Carolina. My head still swims with the sights of barbecue joints and crabcake stands, and roadside shacks where one can get smoked ham and sausages, local peanuts, and fireworks to celebrate it all.

But it’s good to be home, where the daffodils are in full blown bloom, even if the lawn still struggles against the moss and hemlock. The American South is a wonderful place to visit; I like seeing the world, and though I’ve been to more countries than states, the diversity of the US pleases me. But this place feels right, somehow. With a few tiny stints out of bounds, I’ve been a Massachusetts-based New Englander all my life, and I expect to be one for the remainder of it.

James Taylor likes it here, too. And I’ve been promising myself a feature post on good old JT for ages. What better way to celebrate our triumphant return than with an eighteen song megapost on the coversongs of and from this incredible singer-songwriter? Ladies and gentlemen: the coverwork of James Taylor, Massachusetts resident.


Born in Boston, James Taylor spent his adolescence in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where his father was Dean of the UNC School of Medicine. But the family retained strong ties to Massachusetts, summering in Martha’s Vineyard; James attended boarding school at Milton Academy, and when he struggled with depression in his early adulthood, he headed for McLean’s Hospital, a stately suburban instititution just outside of Boston where I remember visiting one of my own friends in the last year of high school.

Though he has since lived in California and London, and though his signature voice retains the barest hint of southern twang under that clear-as-a-bell blueblood bostonian accent, like me, Taylor has always returned to the Massachusetts he loves. Today, he lives about thirty miles west of here, in the Berkshires, just on the other side of the Adirondack ridge. And he retains strong ties to his beloved Martha’s Vineyard, performing there each summer, sometimes with Ben and Sally, his children by ex-wife Carly Simon, who is also a Vineyard resident.

Beyond our shared love of the beaches and woods of Massachusetts, there’s something immutably local and authentic about my experience with James Taylor. My childhood understanding of and familiarity with folk music as a genre and a recorded phenomenon was primarily driven by a strong record collection at home, but my experience of acoustic music as folk — as something singable and sharable and communal — was peppered with young camp counselors who had learned their guitar licks from the radioplay of the day. For me, Fire and Rain will always be a song for campfire singalongs, one which helps me come to terms with the bittersweet and constant state of being both in good company and away from home.

Too, James Taylor was my first concert, and you never forget your first. I remember lying on the summer grass at Great Woods (now the Tweeter Center), looking up at the stars and letting the wave of Fire and Rain wash over me. I remember peering at the stage and recognizing the way James smiled at us, at bass player Leland Sklar, at the song itself as a kind of genuine communion, one which flavored the performance with something valid and universal.

Because of that night, and the organic songs-first-performance-afterwards way I came to it, James Taylor, for me, is the standard by which I measure the authenticity of folk performance. That so many shows have not met that standard since then is a tribute to both Taylor’s gentle nature, and his way with song and performance.

James Taylor’s voice is unmistakable, almost too sweet for some, and he doesn’t fit my every mood. His loose, white-man’s-blues guitar playing is better than most people give him credit for, but it is often downplayed in his produced work. But in the back of my mind his songs are a particular form of homecoming, one intimately tied to summer song and simple times outside of the world as we usually live it. And when I sing Sweet Baby James or You Can Close Your Eyes to my children at night, there’s a part of me that’s back on that summer lawn, letting the music reach a part of me that cannot speak for itself.


We’ll have a few choice covers of Taylor’s most popular in the bonus section of today’s megapost. But first, here’s a few of the many songs which Taylor has remade in his own gentle way over the years: doo-wop standards, sweet nighttime paeans and lullabies, hopeful protest songs, and others.

Though James Taylor does have his pop side, this isn’t it. You’ve heard ‘em before, so I’ve skipped the original versions of the covers which Taylor has made his own through radioplay over the years — including Carole King’s Up On The Roof and Marvin Gaye’s How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) — though I did keep a live version of Handy Man in the mix, and thought it worth trying the new version of You’ve Got A Friend from Taylor’s newest release, the stripped-down One Man Band. (I’ve also skipped his lite pianojazz ballad version of How I Know You, from the Aida soundtrack: it’s not folk, and it’s not my thing.)

Instead, by presenting a selection of Taylor’s rarer and lesser-known coversong all at once, it is my hope that the diversity of the source material here allows even the most jaded of us to come to what is too-often dismissed as Adult Contemporary pablum with new ears, attuned to more subtle differences of tone and undertone — to explore and even collapse the distance between bittersweet and tender, longing and acceptance, home and homesickness, which continues to make James Taylor worth listening to, and celebrating.

James Taylor’s works are mainstream, and distributed as such; his website sends us to amazon.com for purchase. As here at Cover Lay Down we prefer to avoid supporting the corporate middleman in favor of direct artist and label benefit, we recommend that those looking to pursue the songwriting and sound of James Taylor head out to their local record shop for purchase.

Not sure where to begin? Anything released between 1968 and 1974 provides the best introduction to JT’s core sound; I promise it’s folkier than you remember. Jaded folkies who stopped listening a while back might take a second look at Taylor’s 1977 release JT, or albums from the late eighties and nineties such as Never Die Young, New Moon Shine or Hourglass. I’ve heard great things about the recent DVD release One Man Band, Taylor’s return to a sparser acoustic sound. And coverlovers shouldn’t lose sight of James Taylor, either — rumor has it that he has already recorded tracks for an album of soul covers to be released later this year.

I had been saving the bulk of my collection of covers of James Taylor originals for a future Folk Family Feature on the Taylor family: James, Livingston, son Ben, and Ben’s mother Carly Simon. But I’ve been leaking them slowly and surely as time goes on, and the floodgates are open today. So here’s the backlinks, and a few bonus coversongs to tide you over:


James Taylor covers previously on Cover Lay Down:

  • Sheryl Crow covers You Can Close Your Eyes
  • Mud Acres covers Carolina in My Mind
  • Cindy Kallet covers New Hymn

    Related posts:

  • Ben Taylor covers The Zombies’ Time of the Season
  • Livingston Taylor covers Stevie Wonder’s Isn’t She Lovely
  • Carly Simon covers the theme to Winnie The Pooh

    PS: I’m also looking for a rumored 2004 recording of James Taylor and Alison Krauss covering the Louvin Brothers’ How’s the World Treating You. Found! Thanks, Carol!

  • 711 comments » | Bonnie Raitt, Carly Simon, Cassandra Wilson, Da Vinci's Notebook, James Taylor, Mae Robertson, Seldom Scene

    Mae Robertson Covers: Dar Williams, Gillian Welch, Elvis Costello, Beth Nielsen Chapman

    April 16th, 2008 — 12:58 am


    Singer-songwriter and folk interpreter Mae Robertson is my kind of person: a lover of cover songs, and a true fan of the environment, who ran a chain of New York natural fiber children’s clothing stores for twenty years before returning to Alabama in 2000 to pursue her musical career. Many of her albums to date have been released as part of her Lullaby & Lovesong Collection, which has won numerous awards in the world of parenting. And the brightly-colored, flower-shaped plantable business card she sent along with her newest album, the aptly titled Meet the Sun Halfway, really won me over.

    If this were a blog about cool people, I could have stopped there. But though it was the flower-shaped business card, and the personal note that accompanied it, which caused me to give Mae’s work a second listen, it was the music which ultimately won me over. And that’s saying something. Because for most of my life, I’ve dismissed Mae’s sort of music. And now I think I owe some people an apology.

    Mae Robertson comes from a school of folk way on the other end of the spectrum from the lo-fi, sparse, acoustic folk which characterizes the current indiefolk movement. This is folk for those who love Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris, and others in the rich-voiced songstress vein — strong-voiced women who are primarily singers and interpreters of song, rather than storytellers or songwriters per se.

    It’s not generally my favorite branch of the folkworld. And, I’ll be honest, at first I didn’t think this was going to be my cup of tea. But Mae has a lot going for her. Her organic business sense parallels themes of growth in her song choices and, increasingly, in her own emerging songwriting, which is surprisingly direct and vivid. She has an exquisite taste in folkworld cover songs, and an uncanny ability to pick songs and lyrics which best match her sweet, pure alto voice. The emotional honesty and carefully tuned craft she brings to her work is equal to the greatest of the words she sings, whether they are her own, of those of others. And her warm, bright delivery is like the sun itself.

    Like much of this sort of Adult Contemporary folkpop, the way in which we hear Mae’s voice is subject to the whim of the producer, and in this case, the production on some songs is a bit too strong for my own taste. This is a common complaint for many folkfans when faced with this part of the genre, I suspect — I had the same reaction to much of Shelby Lynne’s newest coveralbum. But as with Shelby’s work, the songs here run the gamut, from sparser work in the americana folk vein all the way to the jazzpop stuff, and there’s plenty of gems.

    Even when it works, the heavy, almost syrupy production Mae Robertson chooses for many of her best covers can take some getting used to. It’s startling to hear the likes of Lucinda Williams and Gillian Welch covered in such dulcet tones, and with such lush orchestration. But like the seeds that will sprout from her business card, this is music that truly grows on you. It says something that I’ve continued to listen to these CDs long after I first sampled them. There’s a warm, celebratory tone in Robertson’s voice, and a genuine love of the songs she sings which shines though to the heart.

    My kids hear it, too. Of all the CDs I’ve recieved, these are the only ones my older daughter has asked about; when I asked her why, she said “I like this music; it’s really pretty, and really nice” — high praise, from a five year old. It’s also the only folk music that both kids will dance to. They twirl and smile, like full-grown music box ballerinas, when I put Mae Robertson on. Believe me, this is music that will stay on the turntable for a while. Why not take it for a spin yourself?

    Meet The Sun Halfway was released in February; it includes more stellar covers, and some sweet and cohesive originals from Mae Robertson herself. Cuts above also come from Mae’s two all-cover albums: last year’s gorgeous award-winning lullaby collection Dream, and 2002 release Smile, which has the lightest production of the three CDs mentioned here, and features such back-up folk and bluegrass luminaries as Tim O’Brien, Viktor Krauss, and Sloan Wainwright. Pick up these, and sample all of her previous albums, at CD Baby (Mae’s preferred source) or via her website.

    Today’s bonus coversongs, because Mae Robertson’s fondness for Beth Nielsen Chapman sent me to the stacks.

    1,134 comments » | Beth Nielsen Chapman, Dar Williams, Elvis Costello, Gillian Welch, Mae Robertson, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Willie Nelson